Pacific

Sports news in brief for August 21

20:01 pm on 21 August 2023

Tahiti's Vahine Fierro Photo: WSL/Smith

Surfing - Tahiti competition

Local wildcard Vahine Fierro reached the women's semi-finals of the World Surf League in Tahiti.

Fellow French Polynesian Kauli Vaast made it to the quarter-finals in the men's event.

Jack Robinson from Western Australia took out the men's event and Caroline Marks from Florida won the women's.

The competition was held at Teahupo'o, a break famed for its heavy barrels, and which will host the Paris 2024 Olympic surfing competition.

Netball - Fiji

Fiji Pearls duo Avelina Navue and Reama Verekauta have spent six weeks in New South Wales under the PacificAus Sports Immersion Program.

Netball Australia says the programme creates pathways for emerging Pacific athletes to benefit from high performance coaching and training.

Verekauta and Navue, who were non-travelling reserves for the Fiji Pearls team to the Netball World Cup, trained with the IMB South Coast Blaze Netball team.

Basketball - Tonga

Tonga national women's basketball team captain Lesila Finau has secured a contract to play in Portugal's PROLIGA competition.

She joins the CAB Madeira club which describes Finau as "an exceptional defender, a known points-scorer and a born leader".

She joins CAB Madeira from the California Baptist University.

Tennis - FSM

A New Zealand sports surfacing company has been in Kosrae in the Federated States of Micronesia doing a major of the tennis courts at the National Tennis Centre.

The work has in part been funded by a grant from the ITF Facility Grant Funding.

Julian Faulls from Plexipave NZ said the courts were in the worst state of any courts they have worked on in Australia, New Zealand or Pacific Oceania.

He said that there was enormous base work grinding and preparation to get the base to their satisfaction before they could start applying the first of seven layers of surfacing.

Cricket - PNG

The Papua New Guinea women's cricket team are attending a five-day camp in Brisbane before they compete at the Women's Twenty-20 World Cup East Asia Pacific qualifier in Vanuatu next month.

The Lewas will play off against the Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, Japan and Indonesia in the qualifier, from September 1 to 8.

The tournament winner will advance to the global qualifiers early next year.

Football - on the beach

Tahiti hosts the Oceania Football Confederation Beach Soccer Nations Cup 2023 in Papeete from August 22-26.

They will play Fiji, Solomon Islands and Tonga at the event.

Fiji and the Solomons will open proceedings on Tuesday, with Tahiti meeting Tonga in the second game later that day.

Pacific Games - stadium

The official handover of the National Stadium and other sporting facilities by China to Solomon Islands ahead of the Pacific Games in November will be celebrated in Honiara on Friday.

The facility will be the main Games venue.

It was funded and constructed by the Chinese government.

Taekwondo - Samoa

Samoa has claimed taekwondo medals at the 2023 Kukkiwon Cup, held in Auckland.

The cup, also the Taekwondo New Zealand Championships, is being used as a buildup for the Pacific Games.

The first gold medal for Samoa was won by the young Luisa Fulivai who competed in the Junior grade 1-2, red belt category.

The 17-strong team also picked up silver and bronze placings.